


For the Better, For Good

by BertholdvonMoosburg



Series: Detroit Musical Shenanigans [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drunk Katsuki Yuuri, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, M/M, Wicked - Freeform, exhibition skate, go ahead and break the internet boys, indignant Victor Nikiforov, just the tiniest bit, post-GPF, silliness, skating bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BertholdvonMoosburg/pseuds/BertholdvonMoosburg
Summary: A post-exams night of drinking for Yuuri and Phichit results in thebestidea for an exhibition skate. Sober Phichit is not about to let Sober Yuuri off the hook.Or, Wicked fanboys break the internet.09/05:Posted this in a hurry last night before my computer died, just fixed up a couple things today.





	For the Better, For Good

**Author's Note:**

> This came from [a tumblr post by ineffectualdemon](https://ineffectualdemon.tumblr.com/post/160436782549/concept). I laughed myself sick in the shower and then asked permission to write a fic about it.
> 
> You get _this_ crack as a result.

The door to the apartment slammed open.

“Yuuuuuri,” his roommate’s voice called from the hallway. Yuuri sighed and got up from his desk. They’d only been roommates for a couple of months, but he already knew that tone of voice. It meant something he wasn’t keen on but couldn’t avoid was about to happen. Resistance, in Phichit’s case, was in fact futile.

The younger man was standing in the hall wearing the biggest grin Yuuri had yet seen on him, and that was saying something. He braced himself.

“We’re going to the Fisher!” Phichit beamed. 

“Phichit, I- What?” Yuuri’s protest faltered.

“One of my SNS followers posted that my favourite musical EVER is coming to Detroit for a two-week review! So I got tickets! I had to wait overnight for them but it was so worth it! You’re going to come with me!”

“I didn’t realise The King and the Skater had a stage production.”

“No, my  _ other  _ favourite musical ever, Yuuri!”

“Um,” Yuuri replied intelligently.

Phichit thrust a ticket in his face. Yuuri looked down. His eyes widened. Phichit had definitely used the wrong tone of voice. This did not call for the “strong-arming Yuuri” voice.

Yuuri held his ticket reverently to his chest. “Phichit,” he breathed. “We’re going to see  _ Wicked _ .”

 

***

 

Finals were done and so was Yuuri. So done. The end of the skating season barely gave enough time for him to prepare for his exams, making April a month of hell every year. It was the best time for his roommate to drag him out drinking, after the hell was over.

“One day!” Yuuri declared, slamming his empty pint glass next to the other five on the grotty table they shared. “One day, we’ll make it big, you and me. We’ll get to the Grand Prix together!”

Phichit cheered, lifting his own empty glass. He blinked at it owlishly.

“Yuuri, hold that thought. I can’t listen to you be confident and shit without having a drink to toast with. I’ll be right back!”

He slid off his chair and wound his way through the crowd at the bar. Yuuri just sat patiently, drunkenly, content to wait to continue.

“Okay,” the Thai skater declared, sitting back down and sliding a beer toward his roommate. “Now talk.”

Yuuri grinned. “One day, you and me, you and me, Phichit, we’re going to make it to the Grand Prix Finals together. And it’s gonna be awesome. We need to be  _ prepared _ . We gotta have an exhibition planned. For the exhibition, right?”

Phichit’s eyes widened. “Oh my  _ gooood _ ,” he exclaimed. “ _ We do! _ ” He jumped up. “I have the best idea! I’m gonna get a black dress and green paint and skate ‘Defying Gravity’!”

Yuuri choked on his beer. “Fuck you, that’s so awesome!” 

Phichit’s eyes narrowed. “Wait,” he said. “Wait. That’s not nice of me. Maybe you wanted ‘Defying Gravity’. Did you?”

“You thought of it first,” Yuuri answered. “But admit it, you’re more of a Galinda. I’d totally be a better Elphaba.” He took a drink. His eyes widened. “Oh. My. God. Phichit, we’d be there together. We are, we’re going to be there  _ together _ .”

“Yes, you got started with that.”

Yuuri put his drink down and reached across the table to grab his roommate, his best friend, by both arms. His voice was intense.

“We could do a duet. Not ‘Defying Gravity’, that song’s basically all Elphaba. Um. Something to show the whole damn world how we worked so hard together to be there. Phichit, we could skate ‘For Good’. I’ll be Elphie and you be Glinda. It would be amazing! No one would expect it!”

Phichit’s eyes were wide with awe. Drunk Yuuri was the  _ best _ .

 

***

 

Yuuri woke with a groan. It was so  _ bright  _ out. And his head felt like someone had stuffed cotton balls up there. Fuck, what was that  _ taste  _ in his mouth?

“Morning, sunshine!” he heard, as well as the sound of a camera shutter.

“Auuuughhhhh, Phichit!”

“Don’t worry, Yuuri,” his roommate chirped. “That’s not for instagram. Yet. That’s for insurance.”

“What… what are you talking about?”

“Well, Yuuri, my genius of a friend. Last night we went out. You insisted you could handle all the beers you got, but you know you. Anyway. Somewhere around beer six or seven, you had a brilliant idea and you  _ insisted  _ I go along with it. Now, I’ve been your roommate for two years now and I know that Drunk Yuuri and Sober Yuuri don’t always communicate well. So I made you repeat yourself on video, if you need to see proof that you started this.” He cocked an eyebrow.

Yuuri shook his head, wincing as he did so. He could feel his doom approaching, even over the headache.

“Drunk Yuuri and Drunk Phichit made a pact,” his roommate continued. “The year we make it to the Grand Prix Finals together, we are going to skate an exhibition piece to ‘For Good’, from Wicked. You as Elphaba and yours truly as Glinda.”

Yuuri buried his face in his pillow. And tried to cover his ears. It didn’t block out Phichit’s voice telling him there was advil and water on his night table, and when he was human again, he’d see Yuuri on the ice so they could choreograph together.

Later that day, Yuuri’s head was still aching, but at least it had subsided from the mysteriously loud cotton wool hammers that had been pounding his skull. Lacing up his skates, he promised himself he wouldn’t attempt anything more strenuous than a double that afternoon.

His obnoxiously cheerful roommate was already on the ice, having long since warmed up. Their coach was taking a post-season holiday back home to Italy, leaving them alone in the rink.

He stepped onto the ice.

“Yuuri!” Phichit called, waving. “Warm up, and then we’ll talk choreography!”

Yuuri sighed. It hadn’t been a nightmare.

After stretching and doing a few laps around the ice and some lazy single jumps, he came to a stop beside his roommate at the boards.

“Phichit, please. You know you’re not allowed to hold Sober Yuuri to Drunk Yuuri’s promises. It’s not fair. Sober Yuri can’t even remember making them!” His voice was just a bit pleading.

“Drunk Yuuri, while entertaining when I can coax him out, does not usually come up with such amazing ideas. Drunk Yuuri has ideas like ‘I’m going to fly to Russia and break into Victor Nikiforov’s apartment’ and ‘I think my theme next season should be oranges’. This time, Drunk Yuuri had an actual, feasible, not-going-to-make-me-post-international-bail idea.”

Phichit’s face and voice got serious, and he put a hand up to make his best friend look him in the eye. “Yuuri… No one has ever believed in me like you have. Not even Ciao Ciao, and he convinced me I had enough potential to be worth moving halfway across the world to this frozen wasteland to train. No Thai skater has ever made it to the Grand Prix Finals. Ever. My family support me but they think I’m crazy. You’re the only one who just assumes it’s a matter of time before it happens. I think you believe in me even more than  _ I _ believe in me, and we both know I’m a cocky little shit. If you really,  _ really  _ don’t want to do this, I won’t hold you to Drunk Yuuri’s promise. But…” he paused, and this time  _ he  _ was the one who looked away.

“It would actually mean a lot if you’d go along with this. Maybe it’ll never happen. Maybe Thailand will have to wait for a different skater to be represented in the Grand Prix. But I want to believe it’s going to be me. And if I make it, it’ll be because you helped me get there. I mean, lots of other people too, but no one else is my best friend. I just… would you do it for me? Just for fun?”

And what could Yuuri say to that, except, “Of course, Phichit. Let’s go change skating  _ for good _ .”

 

***

 

Over the following couple of years, they practiced and refined their “exhibition program” whenever Celestino was away. The two skaters would begin with warm-ups and combos lasting through the whole soundtrack, belting out “their” parts and always stopping to dance “Defying Gravity” together. Then they’d run through their skate until it felt smooth and natural again, and spend a whole week running through elements. It would always end in laughter and a promise to get to the Grand Prix Finals together.

The year of Yuuri’s disastrous GPF debut put an end to their plan. It was all Phichit could do to keep his friend getting out of bed each day, and when Yuuri announced that he was going back home immediately after his final exams, Phichit nodded understandingly and kept his tears for late at night in his own room. He didn’t expect, then, that they’d ever get the chance to skate together again.

 

***

 

Hauling their inebriated coaches back to the hotel before the Cup of China, Phichit finally dared mention the hope that he’d kept to himself since the first panicked text he’d gotten about a naked Victor Nikiforov in the Katsuki family onsen. Not only was Yuuri competing again, Phichit had made it to the Grand Prix qualifiers as well, and he hoped his joy and passion for his routines that year would make up for his lack of quads in the scoring.

“Yuuri,” he said, pausing to readjust the heavy Italian he had draped over his shoulders by the arm, “you know that if we both make it this year, I’m holding you to it.”

“Ehh?” was the muffled response from the other side of a (mostly) naked Victor Nikiforov.

“The exhibition,” Phichit clarified. “If we both make it, I’m holding you to your promise.”

Victor Nikiforov slumped unceremoniously to the pavement. Yuuri's hands were more urgently occupied in covering his mouth

“Phichit, no.” Yuuri’s eyes were wide.

The Thai grinned. “Phichit  _ YES _ .”

“Phichit, it’s been almost  _ two years _ since the last time we practiced that. Victor, um, already has something in mind for my exhibition skate. And I might not even make it!”

Phichit was gratified that Yuuri had only used the singular, and at the same time was annoyed he’d voiced any doubts at all. His voice took on an edge.

“Yuuri, we spent  _ three  _ years on that routine. I  _ know  _ you remember it, and we’ll have time to practice it in Barcelona. You can skate whatever Victor wants for your own exhibition, but this is my first year where I might actually have a shot, and when you left me last year I thought we’d never get to make my dream come true, I’d never get to skate with you again. I  _ cried _ , Yuuri. I  _ mourned  _ that program and what it meant to us. If I make it to the finals, you’re going to skate with me.”

Yuuri stared at him helplessly. He couldn’t deny any of the guilt that flooded his mind. 

“Alright, Phichit,” he sighed. “If we get to Barcelona, you bring your pink dress and I’ll bring my black. But,” and he paused for emphasis, “you _ keep it off SNS _ until it happens, ok? The media circus is bad enough as it is.”

Phichit grinned again. It would be a trial, but he’d won so he could afford that concession. “Agreed. Now pick up your coach. We’ve got a podium to climb.”

 

***

 

“ _ A beautiful, playful skate by Sara Crispino to the intermezzo of Holst’s First Suite in E-flat!” _

Hisashi Morooka turned off his mic and slumped in his seat for the commercial break. This was, without hyperbole, the most challenging GPF Exhibition he’d ever had to commentate. First Katsuki had shocked everyone with his unannounced pair skate with his  _ coach _ , who was also announcing his return to competition. He’d been so shocked the airwaves had been silent for a good thirty seconds. It was wonderful, true, and it had been a gorgeous, heartfelt skate, but also sort of scandalous. It felt like the entire world was privy to Katsuki and Nikiforov’s private lives.

While he was recovering from that, the young Russian champion, Yuri Plisetsky, had gone completely off-script, skating to a song he was later informed was called “Welcome to the Madness”.  _ Not  _ the serene classical piece that had been submitted by Feltsman and Baranovskaya. And  _ again  _ a second skater had appeared on the ice unexpectedly to participate. He’d done his best to describe the technical elements as they happened, but avoided commentating on the, ah,  _ artistic  _ elements.

After  _ those  _ two performances, he’d been positively  _ giddy  _ with relief when the Swiss skater, Giacometti, had only been weird enough to skate to “Imperial March in a Major Key,” which turned out to be a Star Wars joke he only picked up on a minute and a half into the skate. The next few skates were unremarkable by comparison, ice dancers skating to something classical, a Tchaikovsky skate by one of the women’s singles, and a few more in that vein. Sara Crispino had likewise contributed to Morooka’s sanity with her fun but conventional Holst performance.

After the commercial break, he would be commentating the men’s singles contender, Phichit Chulanont, who was going to be skating to a song from an American musical. 

The director gave him his first warning cue, and he sat up straighter in his chair and took a sip of water. He counted down the seconds till he was back on air, and then the red light blinked.

_ “Next to skate we have Phichit Chulanont of Thailand, who placed last in this year’s Grand Prix Final! This is his Grand Prix debut, and we hope to see him again in future years! During the qualifiers and here in Barcelona, he has electrified audiences with his charm and enthusiasm. He will be skating to ‘For Good’ from the musical ‘Wicked’. He’s entering the rink now to take his place and he’s… wearing… a pink dress. This certainly has been an exhibition of surprises, haha! _

_ “Chulanont shared a coach with Katsuki Yuuri for several years, and we can perhaps see Katsuki’s influence on his step sequence here. Chulanont’s talent for engaging his audience with the music. A beautiful Ina Bauer here, into a triple loop-double axel combo. And… _

_ “And as seems to be the theme of this year’s exhibition, we have a second skater on the ice. It’s- it’s Katsuki Yuuri. He’s skating again. Um. What a lovely black dress he has on. That’s a beautiful catchfoot layback spin. He’s skating hand in hand with Chulanont. It’s a thrown jump! Katsuki just threw Chulanont into a triple axel! They’re skating completely independent routines from each other now, wait, back into a lift, and now Katsuki is, he’s spinning Chulanont on top... on top of his head! And... he's sliding down, around Katsuki like, like, nevermind. I’ve never seen a move like that before! My friends, I knew that Chulanont and Katsuki trained under the same coach, but I never expected this!  _

_ “This exhibition has been full of more surprises than most, but this might be the most unexpectedly emotional skate of the day!” _

As the song drew to a close, Morooka fell silent and just watched. 

He thought somewhat longingly of retirement.

 

**@dragonsegg486** OMG DOES THIS MEAN #VICTUURI ARE BREAKING UP???

**@weight-on-skate** IT BETTER NOT #victuuri

**@skatingbros5ever** They were roommates in Detrit, calm your shorts

**@dragonsegg486** thats not what you skate with ur roomie!!

**@corgiesftw2003** mebbe katsuki’s poly? 

**@batzbatzbatz** my life is a liiieeeeeee there is no true love!

**@skatingbros5ever** holy shit guys their best friends don’t you read the fansites

**@mari-on-onsen** Seriously, you listen to @skatingbros5ever, Phichit is his best friend.

**@corgiesftw2003** I’m holding out for poly!katsuki

**@jimbobironic** hey @idinamenzel and @KChenoweth, you guys seen this yet?

**@phichit+chu** Best friends 4ever! The Elphaba to my Glinda! Don’t worry, all, there’s still Fiyero! @vnikiforov

**@vnikiforov** I’m not as self-centered as Fiyero! Yuuuri why didn’t you tell me about this???

**@milababa** @vnikiforov Um.

**@vnikiforov** @milababa (((( ;°Д°))))

**@katsudonyuri** I love you, @vnikiforov, but they’re right.

**@vnikiforov** (´;︵;`)

**@therealpopvich** Vitya, even I can tell youre Fiyero.

**@phichit+chu** And didn’t we look fantastic in our dresses! A program five years in the making!

**@vnikiforov** Yes.

**@vnikiforov** @katsudonyuri Please wear that dress for me later

**@weight-on-skate** ok I’m feeling bvetter now! #victuuri lives!

**@plisetsky-y** Gross.   
**@plisetsky-y** @phichit+chu send me a link to this musical ok?

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who feels like drawing Yuuri and Phichit in cute little ladies' skate Elphaba and Glinda outfits is MORE THAN WELCOME.
> 
> Chris skated [to this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9MShtCg4fk). I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.


End file.
